OFFBEAT means unconventional; not conforming to norm. JamaicaMusic Offbeat presents music unconventional to popular Jamaican music which is largely traditional reggae and its dancehall derivatives. It places in the spotlight Jamaican musicians, home and abroad, who are creators/players/performers of improvised and other non-traditional music, the venues and shows that indulge in improvised music. It also features similar musicians and jazz related entities beyond the Jamaican shores.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Roll Call on Jazz in Jamaica

Jazz, the African-American inspired music that is central to New Orleans and environs, has been explored and certainly exploited by the earliest Jamaican musicians, coming to mind readily is master trumpeter Sonny Bradshaw and his Big Band. Thereafter, Jamaica produced internationally recognized pianist Monty Alexander, guitarist Ernest Ranglin, and Birmingham, UK legendary saxophonist Andy Hamilton.

Other jazz musicians who had overseas visibility in a distant past include names like Dizzy Reece (trumpet), Joe Harriott (saxophone), Bertie King (saxophone). Most of these musicians opted to ply their craft overseas in more lucrative, artistically motivating concert halls and jazz clubs of Europe and the United States.

Jazz is played on a regular basis at Christopher’s Jazz Cafe, Red Bones Blues Café, Rib Cage Restaurant, Pegasus Hotel, Terra Nova Hotel, and The Event Place (Montego Bay) and those other open house for improvised music that we inadvertently omit.

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About Me

Claude Wilson, born in St Thomas, Jamaica one 13th September, resident in Kingston, Jamaica, ekes out a living in agricultural sales, author of three handbooks of agriculture and a feature writer for Buzzz Caribbean Lifestyle Magazine. I indulge copiously in jazz, a former PR & publicist for a Jamaican jazz pianist and recording artist and a gospel singer, a profile editor on ALL ABOUT JAZZ website, and a practising Judeo-centric Christian.